


What never could have been

by BooksAndDragons



Series: ShuAke Confidant Week [3]
Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: Angst, Gen, M/M, ShuAke Confidant Week, akechi and his thoughts (now there's a scary tag happy halloween everyone), hint: it's akechi, im tagging everyone but it's more on a 'mentioned' basis, someone's feeling a bit mopey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 13:47:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16476719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BooksAndDragons/pseuds/BooksAndDragons
Summary: Deep down, Akechi had longed for that feeling of unity, when he joined the Phantom Thieves. He’d ached for the support, the praise, the feeling of pride and satisfaction that came at the end of a long day in Mementos. Every move he made in tandem with Joker, he’d clung to like a desperate child.A part of him had hoped they trusted him. Considered him a friend.Seeing them all, in the Engine Room, walking together, shoulders brushing against each other, Battleworn and achy, but happily together- he felt the pang of rejection. He knew before he’d even jumped down from those pipes, before he’d revealed himself as the Black mask.They’d never trusted him.He would never be one of them.ShuAke Confidant Week, Day 3- Rejection





	What never could have been

**Author's Note:**

> Another day! From here, I'm running on writing this stuff as the day comes, soooo wish me luck with that.

Akechi had been using the Metaverse since he was 15. He was no stranger to shadows, or personas- certainly not cognitions.

But to the roaring laughter in the Monabus, the teasing comments in the midst of battle, the reliable support at every twist and turn of the Palace- Akechi most certainly felt a stranger to.

Blackmailing the Phantom Thieves and infiltrating their little group, that had always been the plan. Wait until the end of Sae Nijima’s palace and kill Kurusu in the Interrogation chambers, he was ready for that. He’d put an end to that annoying attic trash, his sickening kindness and irritating friends.

And then, he joined the Phantom Thieves of Hearts.

When Eigaon was heading straight towards him and Robin, suddenly Akira was there, supported by Arsene’s bold wings, taking minor damage from the element the pair were so inclined to.

In the Monabus, Makoto shared her water, claiming he looked tired. The thieves were quick to ask about his health, worry about his sleeping patterns- Akechi couldn’t remember the time someone asked how much sleep he’d been having recently.

At Leblanc, Akira always added extra curry to his and Yusuke’s plates. Going to bed hungry was becoming but a distant memory.

Akechi could remember the gut-aching laughter when Ryuji suddenly decided that he was able to stomach coffee. In particular, Haru’s elephant-dung black coffee. It had been a spit-take that Futaba had immortalised forever on her phone.

That amused yet serene smile on Akira’s face as he set all the thieves lose to gamble their shadow winnings in Sae’s Palace. How it made Akechi's own heart race, especially when Akira transferred that same look directly at his direction.

But then, he’d stared into Akira’s glazed eyes, his beaten face. The blood congealing on his wrists, the pricks of needles peeking out from the Shujin turtleneck, the way each breath was much shorter, as if to breathe longer pushed the very limits of his ribcage, long lashes stuck together from some sort of liquid, perhaps tears. He’d looked at it all, then he shot Akira in the face.

Leblanc was no longer a source of homely comfort. No longer would he be welcomed with Akira’s warm smile and Sojiro’s old-man grumblings.

His forgotten meals went back to being forgotten, nobody caring if he’d eaten or not. If he felt well at all.

But it was all his fault, and he knew it.

The Phantom Thieves had offered their hands to him, and he threw it aside. Killed their beloved leader, their guiding light. Betrayed their trust in the worst way possible.

He still caught himself lingering in the train station, hoping to bump into Akira. Those days were always the worst. The days where the shadow of a ghost would flash around every corner, linger at their favourite spots, watch over Akechi’s shoulder as he did paperwork. The briefcase was always heaviest on those days, the nightmares most vivid.

He hated himself for clinging to that ghost. For creating that ghost in the first place.

He could have had friends, companions. On most days, he’d hiss to himself that he didn’t need friends, that they were pathetic- a crutch for the weak. He was stronger than such reliance, such neediness. He’d made it this far by himself- he didn’t need anyone else.

On other days, he taunted himself with images of what could have been. Perhaps he would have told the others about his relation with Shido, and Akira’s eyes would light with determination- they’d storm into his Palace, tear it down in a matter of days, Akechi could destroy that man, surrounded by honest and genuine support from the Phantom Thieves. Perhaps they would celebrate after, full of warmth and excitement. Akira could lean into him, giddy and tired from the past days events, and Akechi would carefully place his arm around that slim frame- maybe that night, running on sheer adrenaline, Akechi would finally work up the courage to act on the feelings he’d buried for so long.

But instead he threw it all away.

With a single bullet, he destroyed all hope he could have ever had at that happiness.

How easy it could have been, to escape that interrogation room with Akira in his arms- battered and broken, but he’d be safe, protected.

Instead, he was dead.

Dead, at Akechi’s hands. Shido gave the order, but it was Akechi that followed them, like some pathetic dog following the orders of its master with no mind of it’s own.

The thieves had offered him a way out, and he turned away.

The hope he never thought he’d be offered, that he never deserved, offered to him in perfect scenario after perfect scenario- he could have had that. Their care, their friendship.

And he hated himself for rejecting that.

* * *

 

They’d _never_ cared.

He was a fool to think they were ever genuine about their friendship, that they would ever truly welcome him among their precious ranks, their sickeningly-close bond. He was a tool, yet again, just something other people used for their own advantages.

They pretended. Faked kindness and honestly- those innocent offerings, rambunctious rounds of laughter, all of it a mask for their true loathing, their distrust.

For how long had they been hiding so much from him? Had it been their plan the entire time, to weaken him with their friendship and bonding, only to betray him, to whisper secrets behind his back and plot their way around his path, like undetected phantoms.

He watched them, exhausted but still smiling, linked arm-in-arm, hand-in-hand, the final letter of admission to Shido’s Representative Chamber secured in their grasp.

And right in the middle, surrounded by love and support, wearing that irritatingly-soft smile and perfectly breathing, was Akira Kurusu.

No bullet wound through his skull, all physical wounds from his interrogation mostly healed- it was as if nothing had ever happened.

As if Akechi had never even existed.

He knew in that moment, the second he lay eyes on Kurusu, that he’d been manipulated. They tugged at strings of his heart that he once thought were long-since withered, played him into believing their offer was real- all to get rid of him.

They always knew he didn’t belong with them.

As he jumped down from the upper pipes, landing perfectly before a minorly-startled Joker, he told himself that deep down, he'd always known he didn’t belong with them either.


End file.
